Reportedly a Version of 'Cats' Exists That Includes the Cats' CGI Buttholes, and #ReleasetheButtholeCut Could be Just the Thing to Save Us All

Last year's film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical "Cats" will go down in history as one of the biggest failures the film industry has ever produced. And may live on as the standard by which all future Hollywood disasters are judged. From the moment its first trailer released in the Fall to it's theatrical release at Christmas, it was pure, industrial strength audience repellent. Not just because the Broadway show upon which it's based is a weird, plotless, peyote mushroom trip of early 80s kitsch that appeals to middle aged women whose number of pet cats they live alone with is exceeded only by the number of collectible, decorative kitty plates they have hanging on their dining room wall that they ordered from an ad in TV Guide. 

I got dragged to this thing by a girlfriend when I was 21. And my lasting memory is that the songs alternated between horrible, maudlin power ballads like you'd hear at local theater auditions for "Godspell" and terrible showstoppers that imitated the sound of a hell demon sharting out an alley cat onto the hood of a car and setting off the alarm. And a lot of talking and singing about Jellicle cats, without any sort of an explanation as to what or who they are, other than a gawdawful return on a 21-year-old's ticket investment.

For the movie version, producers chose to eliminate the two elements that made "Cats" popular enough that it will play in revivals and touring shows until the sun goes nova: The dancing and the costumes. Instead they replaced them with actual, non-musical actors standing around and bizarre CGI cat suits that physically repulsed anyone who has never had costumed sex with a stranger in the bathroom stall at a FurryCon. That's a small, very specific demo. And they weren't enough to keep this smouldering tire fire of a movie from losing a metric ton of money. Some estimates have it at as much as -$100 million

But ... there is hope. Slim hope, but hope nevertheless. That in this, our hour of need, there might be a version of "Cats" that can entertain a weary world in need of something to hold onto. From television writer Jack Waz:

When Jerry Lewis died, I said that one of my unfulfilled dreams in life was to see his unreleased movie, "The Day the Clown Cried."

Lewis co-wrote, directed and starring this film, in which the titular character is taken by the Nazis to a concentration camp, and his job is to entertain the Jewish children. While leading them into the gas chambers. I'm not making that up. Lewis had a legal injunction put on the movie preventing it from being released until 2025. I've been counting down the days. Until now.

Now, that an every other movie can wait. Because the number one priority for all of us should be for the studio #ReleasetheButtholeCut. NOW. Not tomorrow. Not after breakfast. Now. The man who made "Knives Out," one of the best movies of 2019 agrees.

Imagine it. An all star cast of performers in GCI cat fur with digital buttholes under their tails. What could be more entertaining than seeing that? Nothing, that's what. It boggles the mind. Do they have different, distinct buttholes? Does, say, Taylor Swift's feline brown eye look exactly like James Cordon's? What about Jennifer Hudson and Judi Dench? Poor Idris Elba is in this mess and he's got Coronavirus. Wouldn't it help his recovery to see himself dancing around with a balloon knot on his backside? Or to compare and contrast the buttholes of Rumpleteazer and Rum Tum Tugger? Ian McKellen not only played Gandalf and Magneto, he's been knighted by the Queen. The human race is suffering, and maybe the only thing that can help is to see Sir Ian with a VFX cat asshole. There's only one way to know. 

So I implore anyone who might have a copy of this thing, #ReleasetheButtholeCut. On streaming, obviously because we can't be crowding into theaters and this will create a mob scene. And not for free. We'll pay. The world economy needs it. Show us the CGI cat buttholes and you'll be the heroes we need. 

UPDATE: Dammit.